What friends should do in an emergency
The people around you need three things, not a briefing: give sugar, stay, and never put anything in the mouth of someone who cannot swallow.
The people around you do not need to understand diabetes. They need to know three things, and the whole point is that those three things fit in a conversation short enough that you will actually have it.
- Sugar first. If you go vague, shaky, grey or stop making sense, they give you something sugary and do not let you carry on.
- Never force anything into the mouth of someone who cannot swallow, is unconscious or is having a seizure. That is a 999 call.
- Where your kit is. A treatment nobody can find is a treatment nobody can give.
- Being confused or slurring looks like being drunk. Telling people in advance is what stops that mistake.
- It is not only lows. Glucose can also rise and go too high, and with ketones that makes someone genuinely unwell: being sick, breathing fast or very drowsy is a reason to call for help too.
- They will not do it perfectly, and imperfect help arrives far sooner than perfect help does.
The conversation, in about thirty seconds
You do not owe anyone an explanation of type 1, and a long briefing is the reason these conversations never happen. What a friend genuinely needs is short enough to say while walking somewhere: I have type 1 diabetes, if I go weird or vague give me something sugary, and my stuff is in this pocket.
The word most worth including is the one about behaviour rather than symptoms. Friends do not spot sweating or shakiness, they spot you going quiet, getting irritable, repeating yourself, or looking through them. Telling them what it looks like from the outside is far more useful than a list of what it feels like from the inside.
Say it before you need it, and to more than one person if you can. The occasions where it matters are exactly the ones where you cannot deliver the briefing yourself, and one person who knows is worth more than five who might have guessed.
Sugar, staying with you, and not letting you carry on
The practical instruction is to give something sugary and then stay. A full-sugar drink, glucose tablets, sweets: whatever is nearest and fastest. The thing people get wrong is wandering off once you have had something, when the useful part is staying long enough to see whether you come back to yourself.
Not letting you carry on matters just as much. Someone low will often insist they are fine and want to keep playing, keep walking, keep driving. That insistence is a symptom rather than an assessment, and a friend who says no for ten minutes has done the most useful thing available to them.
Afterwards is worth mentioning too. Once you are back, something more substantial usually helps it hold, and a friend does not need to know why, only that it is normal to eat again after.
When it stops being sugar and becomes 999
There is a line where this changes completely, and it is worth naming clearly because the instinct on the wrong side of it is dangerous. If someone cannot swallow safely, is unconscious, or is having a seizure, nothing goes in their mouth. Not a drink, not a gel, not a spoon of anything. It can go into the lungs, and people have been harmed by well-meaning attempts.
What happens instead is: call 999, say the person has type 1 diabetes and you think they are having a severe hypo, and put them on their side while you wait. That sentence to the operator matters, because it changes what arrives and what they do first.
Some people are prescribed something for a friend or family member to give in exactly that situation. If that applies to you, then the people most likely to be there should know it exists, where it is kept and roughly how it works, because a medication nobody can find is no use at the moment it is needed.
Who is worth telling
Aim for whoever is actually nearby when things go wrong rather than whoever is closest to you emotionally. A housemate matters for nights, a training partner for exercise, a colleague for a long shift. And more than one person is genuinely better, because the one who knows is not always the one who is there.
What it looks like from the outside
Examples, not instructions or doses.
Mid-conversation you stop making sense and repeat yourself. Your friend has been told that is what it looks like, hands you a drink and waits with you rather than assuming you are tired.
You say you are fine and want to keep going. Being told no for ten minutes is the friend doing exactly the right thing, because that insistence is part of the low.
Unresponsive, so nothing goes in your mouth. On your side, 999 called, and the operator told it is a suspected severe hypo in someone with type 1.
When it's urgent
If someone with type 1 is unconscious, having a seizure, or cannot swallow safely, do not put anything in their mouth. Call 999, say they have type 1 diabetes and you think it is a severe hypo, and put them in the recovery position while you wait. If they are prescribed emergency medication for a severe hypo, use it as they were shown and still call for help.